Upon her technique’s completion, Lilian collapsed to the ground, on her hands and knees, exhausted beyond comprehension. Her vision blurred before snapping into focus, and she started to teeter before righting herself. Inari-blessed, she was tired. In that moment, all she wanted to do was cuddle up beside Kevin and sleep.
Slow clapping caught her attention. Lifting her head took more effort than it should’ve. Seth walked towards her, his slow, mocking claps echoing across the school grounds.
“Bravo. Bravo. You two have done an extraordinary job. Truly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a magnificent show being put on, and to think it came from a pair of two-tails. However, this is the end for you. You two are out of youki, which means it’s my turn.”
“Spirit Art: Soul Stealer.”
Unlike last time he had used this technique, where his tails had struck nothing, this time they slammed into both Iris and Lilian, passing through their chests. From that moment on, all either of them knew was pain.
Their screams echoed across the empty school.
***
Something was wrong.
From the very onset of this battle, Cassy knew that she had it in the bag. She was faster than Master Kevin, stronger than Master Kevin, was a better fighter than Master Kevin, and she had more experience than Master Kevin. He’d done well for a human, but the only reason he’d lasted this long was because she couldn’t bring herself to truly hurt him.
That was what she had thought at first. Now she wasn’t so sure.
The battle had taken a sudden turn. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know when. She just knew that somehow, Master Kevin had taken control of the battle’s flow. Every time she attacked, he avoided it and countered. He used a minimalistic style that she hadn’t seen before. His moves remained sloppy and unrefined—no, they were even worse than before, as he left his defense full of holes that were easy to exploit. In spite of this, he’d somehow managed to dodge every strike thrown his way with the minimum amount of effort.
And his reaction times were so fast! It was like he could see her every attack before she even made it. Every time she threw a punch or a kick, he was already in motion, moving to counter her attacks at the same time that she attacked, like he could see into the future. But that shouldn’t be possible! No one was capable of seeing into the future. Not yōkai and certainly not humans.
How is he doing this?!
She thrust her left hand out in a quick jab at Master Kevin’s face. He avoided it, tilting his body ever so slightly to the side, allowing her fist to brush past his face, rustling his hair. At the same time, his hand came up and gently brushed her attack aside.
Realizing that she’d been thwarted, Cassy sought another opening. She found one near his torso and lashed out with a lightning-quick strike that should have taken the wind right out of his sails.
Master Kevin began to twist and bend, contorting around her attack. His right hand came up. His palm touched her wrist, pushing her arm wide at the same time that he took a single step forward. Then his left hand extended in a swift palm strike that caught her in the chest, forcing her to stumble back.
She stamped on the ground, left foot behind her, halting her backwards momentum, leg bending to absorb the impact, which she then used to push herself forward. She took exactly two quick steps toward Master Kevin. Then she twisted her body and lashed out with a straight kick aimed at an opening on his left.
Once again, Master Kevin moved at the exact same time as her—no, he was moving even before her. Two steps to the right. He raised his arm. Her kick passed between his arm and torso, and then his arm moved back in just as quickly, trapping her leg under his armpit.
“What?!”
Before Cassy knew what was happening, he’d pulled her forward and slammed into her with a vicious head-butt that knocked her back. Blood welled up in her nose. Pain stung her eyes, which had crossed. Cassy ignored it. She recovered quickly and threw a straight jab at his chest, but Master Kevin lowered his body and tilted to the left. Her fist grazed his shoulder. He came back up, his left hand pushing her arm up toward the sky, right hand striking her in the face. Once again, it all happened simultaneously.
This time Cassy came in with a high kick aimed at his face, wanting to knock him out swiftly. She only realized her mistake a second later, when Master Kevin lowered himself all the way to the ground and kicked her leg out from underneath her. The world spun for a second, and then Cassy was on her back, staring into a pair of hooded blue eyes, and feeling the barrel of a gun pressed firmly under her chin.
“I don’t understand, nya,” she muttered. “How did you beat me?”
Breathing heavily, and with sweat dripping down his face, Master Kevin stared into the eyes with an unwavering gaze. “I realized after my fight with a two-tailed kitsune back at the Comic-Con that I couldn’t continue fighting the way I have been. I was fighting the same way I would against a regular human. That was my mistake. You people aren’t human. You’re yōkai. I knew that if I wanted to win against yōkai in combat, then I needed to learn how to fight smart, not just fight using my strength and my mouth.”
“Fight… smart?”
“That’s right.”
Cassy didn’t understand, but she realized that Kevin wasn’t going to tell her anything. He had no reason to.
“I see.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Go ahead, nya. Finish it.”
“No.”
“Nya?” Cassy opened her eyes as Master Kevin stood up and backed away from her.
He looked down at her with a gaze that she couldn’t fathom. “I won’t kill someone when I don’t have to. I refuse to do that. I won’t become some kind of monster because I was willing to take the easy way out.”
Ba-dump.
Cassy stared at the boy as her heartbeat increased. Master Kevin stood over her, his shoulders straight and his gaze firm, resolute in ways that she’d never seen from anyone, much less a human.
“And besides,” Master Kevin added. “There’s no way I could kill you.”
“Nya?” Cassy tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re the cat I took with me to Comic-Con, aren’t you?” Master Kevin asked, and Cassy felt her cheeks become warm. “And if I’m correct, then you’re also the same cat that I took care of all those years ago back when I was a child.”
Cassy looked away. “When did you realize that?”
“During this fight, actually,” he said. “I noticed during our fight that you never went all out. You never used your full strength or speed, and you never used those hellfire attacks that Lilian told me about. I wondered why at first, but it wasn’t until you said you would take care of me that I realized who you were.”
Cassy couldn’t believe it. He’d figured out who she was just from that?
“It took me a while,” Master Kevin continued sheepishly. “I’m still coming to terms with the fact that yōkai have disguised themselves as humans. For some reason, the idea that a yōkai would disguise herself as an animal never occurred to me.”
This boy…
She had seriously underestimated Master Kevin. Thinking on it, even though he lit a fire in her loins, she hadn’t thought much of him as a person. He was only human, after all. It was only now that she realized her mistake.
“Anyway, you can stay here or leave. I don’t really care so long as you don’t try to stop me anymore,” Master Kevin said.
“I don’t think I could stop you no matter how hard I tried, nya.” She could still fight, of course, but it was becoming clear to her that short of killing him, nothing would stop Master Kevin from rescuing Lilian—and that would have defeated the purpose of fighting him. “Just tell me one thing, nya. Why do you care about Lilian so much? What makes her so special, nya?”
When Master Kevin’s face shifted, lips quirking in a tender smile and eyes growing warm, Cassy realized that Master Kevin would never belong to her—unless she was willing to share, which she wasn’
t. Cassy was not the sharing type.
“Because she changed me. Because she helped me. Because she made me into a better person. Because she makes me want to be a better person. Because I can understand her better than anyone else, just as she understands me. Because when I’m with her, every day feels bright and new and exciting. I could give you a thousand reasons and it still wouldn’t be enough to tell you why she’s so important to me.”
“I see,” Cassy said, smiling sadly. “She’s one lucky girl.”
Master Kevin shook his head. “I’m the lucky one. Anyway, you can do whatever you want from here on out. Leave, stay, whatever, but this is where we part ways.”
Cassy watched as Master Kevin ran off. While her body was still in good shape, she felt defeated in ways that she’d never imagined possible.
“Maybe that vixen was right,” she muttered, remembering the conversation that she’d had with Lilian during her attempted assassination in Los Angeles.
Cassy looked at the clear, blue sky. Such a strange thing, that sky. It contradicted her stormy emotions, which felt like a downpour of self-recriminations, so perfectly.
“Maybe it was my own hesitation that led to her taking the place in Master Kevin’s heart that I wanted for myself.”
It was something to think about, at least.
That thought didn’t console her very much.
***
Lilian stared dully at the sky. Everything hurt. She could scarcely remember the last time she’d felt this much pain. The memory of what she’d suffered when that gorilla had beaten her was a pittance compared to this.
She looked down at the tail that had phased through her body, squeezing her spirit with a crushing grip, and then at the man who was responsible.
“Oh, my. You two are still awake?” Seth chuckled, his dark grin filling her vision. “You’re awfully resilient. And here I thought you’d be unconscious by now. That would have made this so much easier on you. I’m still not used to ripping souls from bodies, you see. It’s a terribly difficult technique that requires more youki than most three-tails have. However, I’ve learned that if someone is rendered unconscious, the process becomes simpler. Now you two will need to suffer some more because of your own stubbornness.”
Lying next to her, Iris gritted her bloodstained teeth. “F-fuck you, old ma—aa-aahhh!!”
“Iris!” Lilian screamed as her sister writhed. She turned her angry, hate-filled gaze onto Seth. “Stop it! Stop hurting her!”
But Seth didn’t stop, and Lilian soon found herself writhing along with her sister. Her body screamed, her vision blurred, her mouth opened in a silent scream as her tongue lolled out. A thousand hot fire pokers were stabbing her from the inside out.
She didn’t know how long the torture lasted. It could have been seconds, or it could have been hours. All she knew was that when the hurting stopped, Lilian couldn’t feel much of anything. Her entire body felt numb.
“Hmm… still holding onto your consciousness. I must say, you two show some incredible resistance. I wonder if this is because of your void and celestial natures. Kuku. Adding you to my collection will be my greatest joy.”
“Y-your collection?” Lilian’s lips somehow moved to form the words.
“Oh, yes. I have a wonderful collection of all the fascinating people I’ve killed. You haven’t seen them because I haven’t had a chance to bring them out yet, but that’s okay. You’ll become well-acquainted with them soon enough. Now, I do believe it is about time I continued.”
Despite her entire body feeling numb, Lilian somehow still felt pain. It was because Seth wasn’t attacking her body, but her spirit, and her body suffered alongside it because the two were connected.
Fire flooded her nerves. Her body writhed along the ground like a worm digging in the dirt. She tasted copper on her tongue, which had swelled, nearly doubling in size.
This couldn’t be the end, could it? Hadn’t she sworn to herself that she would become stronger? Strong enough that she could remain by Kevin’s side? How come she was still so weak? Or was this merely the vast difference between a kitsune with two tails and one with three? Was the gap just that large?
Because her mind was overcome with pain, it took Lilian several seconds to realize that the pain had inexplicably stopped, and all she felt now were its aftereffects.
It took another second to realize that Seth’s tail no longer held its icy grip on her soul.
Another to realize that Seth was howling in pain, gripping his left knee, from which massive quantities of blood leaked through his fingers like a river of wine.
And one more to realize that she and Iris were no longer alone.
“Get-your-grubby-tails-off-my-girlfriend-and-Iris-kick!”
There was a loud, familiar shout that came from behind her—right before a pair of shoes flew over her shoulder and smashed into Seth’s face, which seemed to distort at the point of impact. A body followed the feet. After planting his shoes into the three-tailed yōkai, the figure used Seth’s face as a springboard to move into a corkscrewing leap. He landed on his feet between her and Seth.
Seth was sent crashing to the ground several yards away.
Standing tall, with his back to her, Kevin turned his head and looked at her with worry clear in his eyes.
“B-Beloved?”
“Are you all right?” he asked, keeping one eye on her and the other on Seth.
“Uh, um, yes,” Lilian muttered. That wasn’t exactly true, but she would live. There was no need to worry Kevin unnecessarily.
“Good. Iris, what about you?”
“Ugh, I think something broke in here.” Iris somehow managed to raise a shaky hand and give him a thumbs-up. Unlike Lilian, who lay on her back, Iris was actually unsteadily climbing to her feet. “But I should live. Thanks for the save, Stud.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Kevin said, his worried frown morphing into a grin. “I’m sorry for being a little late, but you know how it is. The hero is always supposed to arrive at the last second.”
Despite her body feeling like it had been twisted into a pretzel and then stomped on by a horde of oni, Lilian found it within her to smile. “You’ve always wanted to say that, haven’t you?”
“Ah-ha! You could tell, couldn’t you?”
“How cliché,” Iris muttered. “Don’t tell me you’re going to become one of those clichéd shōnen protagonists.”
Kevin pouted. “That’s mean, and in any case, it’s better than being a clichéd harem protagonist.”
“That is where you and I will have to agree to disagree.”
Before their banter could go any further, Kevin was forced to dodge a wave of hellish flames. Lilian, Iris, and Kevin turned their gaze to Seth, who’d managed to climb onto one knee, though he still fiercely gripped the other. His eyes were narrowed in a hateful glare.
“You damn… human! You shot me!”
Those words caused Lilian to notice the tiny pistol in Kevin’s hand, causing her to conclude that he had, indeed, shot Seth in the kneecap.
Her mate turned to the injured kitsune, his own glare matching the fierce look in the yōkai’s eyes. “And you tortured my girlfriend and her sister! If you think getting your kneecap blown off is all I’m going to do to you, then you’ve got another thing coming! Get ready, Furball! Because we’re not even close to being done yet!”
Chapter 12
Violent Recourse
Kevin was beginning to think that antagonizing the three-tails hadn’t been one of his better ideas. Oh, sure, it got the kitsune to focus the entirety of his attention on him, but that was turning out to be something of a double-edged sword, as it meant he had to deal with a constant stream of attacks sent his way. What else could he do, though? He couldn’t let this person focus on Lilian and Iris, who were still recovering.
The good news was that his opponent couldn’t move. Before their fight had even started, Kevin had shot the three-tails in the left kneecap. He didn’t know if the kn
eecap had shattered, but it didn’t matter. The redhead seemed incapable of standing up. That forced him to attack from a prone position and made dodging his hellfire and spirit techniques easier.
Kevin did wonder for a brief moment why Seth wasn't using any illusions, but only long enough for him to remember something that Kotohime had said to him during one of her lectures.
He was sitting on the couch as Kotohime lectured him on how illusions worked. “You already know the basics. Casting illusions is the act of supplanting a false reality within the mind of the person that the illusion is being cast on. Nothing you see, hear, or feel in an illusion is real, but the caster makes it seem real by invading your mind with youki to control your brain waves and the synapses that send signals from your brain to the rest of your body.”
“Which is why it can be broken with pain, right?” Kevin asked.
Kotohime nodded. “That's correct. Kitsune excel at illusions. While some of us, like myself, prefer not to use them, they are our single most powerful ability. However, illusions are also insanely difficult to cast. While being a kitsune makes us predisposed toward using them, the amount of concentration required to envision a new reality and then impose it onto another person is insane. Therefore, if you want to stop a kitsune from casting an illusion on you, then you should inflict as much pain on them as possible.”
She smiled.
“After all, inflicting pain on your enemy is much better than inflicting it on yourself.”
Kevin had shot Seth in the kneecap already. That was painful. No two ways around it. Seth probably couldn't muster up the concentration needed to properly create an illusion, never mind casting one.
Not that him not using illusions really mattered in the grand scheme of things. Kevin couldn’t even get close to Seth. Every time he tried to close the distance, Seth would launch a barrage of spirit techniques and hellfire, forcing him to back off. It was a vexing situation.
“You damn human!” With spittle flying from his mouth, Seth held a closer resemblance to a rabid animal than a bipedal sentient being. “I’ll kill you!”
A Fox's Mate (American Kitsune Book 6) Page 38